Released to television screens around North American in 1978 just before Halloween made him a star director, John Carpenter’s Someone’s Watching Me takes place in Los Angeles where we meet a recent transplant named Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton). When the film begins, she’s just moved into a fancy new apartment complex. She’s recently split up with her boyfriend and makes her living as a television director. It’s at her job that she befriends Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau). Leigh fits in pretty quickly in her new digs, and soon she’s even dating a dashing professor named Paul Winkless (David Birney).
Leigh’s luck changes pretty quickly when it turns out she’s got a bit of a ‘peeping tom’ problem. It starts off with a few odd phone calls and then things start arriving in the mail under the guise of them being prizes for contests she never entered. The cops are no help, but the telescope that she ‘won’ turns out to be more useful than she realized. As Leigh’s admirer’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, she realizes that she’s in danger and sets out to figure out who is watching her, why and how to get it to stop.
A strong thriller that is, at times, reminiscent of Rear Window, Someone’s Watching Me is a tense and well-acted film that showcases Carpenter’s impressive directorial skills.
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